


The Last Dinosaur

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Extinct/Extant, F/M, Genocide, Merrill's Affinity for Acrobatics and Griffins, The Bone Pit (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25217083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: Anders and Merrill make one last stop at the Bone Pit.
Relationships: Anders/Merrill (Dragon Age)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	The Last Dinosaur

“So why did you want to climb all the way up here?” Anders asked.

Merrill stood so close to the edge it felt like she was already falling. Her toes curled around the stone and dirt caught under her nails. It was too misty to see the view in its full glory, but she caught bits of the shore, the sea, and the rest of the Vimmarks.

“You don’t like it?” She stretched her arms out for balance, like she was walking a tightrope. “Doesn’t it feel like we’re almost on top of the world? Though we’re not. Sundermount is taller, for one.”

It went unsaid that she didn’t want to go back there. That time in her life was over.

“That doesn’t really explain it,” Anders said, prodding the side of the nest with the butt of his staff. No dragons or wyrmlings or demons scurried out the woodworks. Anders didn’t seem reassured. “This place is creepy.”

“It is cursed land,” Merrill agreed. She returned to Anders’s side, and then proceeded to climb inside the nest. She prodded the shells that had been left behind with her foot. They were sturdy things, it was hard to believe the dragonlings they had safely sheltered their months in incubation now lay dead. “Nothing can grow and thrive here. It it cursed, on both sides of the Veil.”

“This whole of the bloody Marches is cursed,” Anders scoffed. He peered into the nest and offered a wry smile. “Are you saying Hawke made a mistake keeping the place?”

“Hawke made a mistake involving herself in the place to begin with.” Merrill spoke lightly, with such easy inflection. “Though she seems committed to it… It’s fine though, since Hawke is cursed too. And all of us as well.”

They had all lost too much for anyone to say otherwise.

Anders heard himself chuckle. “You know, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said that three years ago.”

“I wouldn’t have either,” Merrill admitted brightly. “I would have said it anyway just to spook you, but I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“We’re getting older and wiser.” Anders’s joints were stiff and his back was achy, he stretched and his neck cracked, and he felt Justice pool their magic to ease the pain.

Merrill huddled down into the nest. It seemed to be made of mud and stone and twig and gore all mashed together into a pulp and shaped like clay. It stunk, but not worse than Anders did on a bad day.

“We defeated a High Dragon. Do you think they’ll start calling us Dragonsbane?” she asked.

Anders sighed. “They don’t give mages titles like that-”

“Or elves,” Merrill cut in.

“Or elves,” Anders agreed. That ruled out Fenris as well.

“I guess they could call Hawke or Sebastian ‘Dragonsbane’. But they both have too many titles already,” Merrill mused. “It’s a shame Isabela and Varric weren’t there. ‘Varric Dragonsbane,’ ‘Isabela Dragonsbane’ – they both sound very dashing and strong and romantic.”

“Careful, you’ll make me jealous,” Anders teased.

“Oh, only a little bit,” Merrill appeased. “Just enough to make your face nice and rosy.”

They leaned for a bit on opposite sides of the nest. And then Merrill climbed up, and walked the rim of it.

“Dragons were meant to be extinct, they said. But they’re not… Do you think there could still be griffins out there too?”

“Well, between my time in the Wardens and here I’ve seen more than one dragon, but still no griffins,” Anders offered. The evidence spoke for itself, perhaps.

Merrill proceeded to climb up the ledge to the highest point on the peak. “Pretty soon there won’t be any elves left either.” She pulled herself up hand over hand.

“There are plenty of elves,” Anders said witheringly. “The alienages are filled to the brim and spilling out everywhere else. That’s a terribly large amount of elves to just disappear entirely.”

“Yes,” Merrill agreed, “but you know what I meant.” _There won’t be any true elves – Dalish elves, Sabrae Elves._

Anders said nothing. The way Merrill’s solidarity expanded and contracted capriciously to include or exclude Alienage Elves made no sense to him.

“Follow me up here, vhenan.”

He climbed the ledge, though his boots weren’t made for it – too bulky and cumbersome. But he made it up with only a few slips and curses.

Here they were, at the top of Maharian Quarry, above the cursed spread of the Free Marches.

“Hold me up,” Merrill urged him. “I’ll stand on your shoulders.”

“You can’t be serious?” Anders said, even as he hunched down so Merrill could climb up. “Is _this_ why you brought us up here?”

“Shhh! I’m pretending to be a griffin,” she said. “Or a dragon.”

“You’re mad,” Anders said, though it came out weak. It would have been hypocritical for him to criticise.

She sat on his shoulders as he pressed himself up to standing. And then they wobbled together as she attempted to stand in turn. He offered his hands as platforms first, and then grabbed at her calves to steady them both once she was up.

It was a bit frightening, and a bit exhilarating. Merrill spread her arms, felt the breeze, and watched the ledges of the mountain drop and disappear around her on all sides. Only her and the mist and the sky. And it could not be anything like true flight.

She flapped her arms, thinking what it would be like to have a fluffy set of wings, and then opened her mouth and screeched.

Anders stumbled and almost toppled the two of them, he startled so badly.

It was nothing like the delicate syllables humans used to mimic animals, ‘Caw, caw!’ -but something raw and feral.

She wondered what it would have been like to be the last griffin. Flying and looking for others who were no longer there. She screeched again for the both of them.

_I’m here. I’m here._

_I’m alive._

_Come find me._


End file.
